While there has been some progress made in reducing healthcare-associated infections, patients are still dying from things like adverse drug events, falls, diagnostic errors and overexposure to medical radiation.
“We need to declare right now that preventable harm is unacceptable and work to prevent all types of harm,” Peter Pronovost, PhD, senior vice president for patient safety and quality and director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, said during the hearing.
Panelists at the hearing said one of the main issues is that providers and other agencies are not accurately measuring patient harm events, according to ProPublica coverage of the event. Ashish Jha, MD, professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, called for requiring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track patient harms beyond HAIs.
Tejal Gandhi, MD, president of the National Patient Safety Foundation, called for the creation of systems that monitor patient care to help prevent missed or delayed diagnosis. “We cannot just tell clinicians to try harder and think better,” he said, according to ProPublica.
Additionally, John James, PhD, founder of Patient Safety America, suggested that Congress establish a National Patient Safety Board, similar to the National Transportation Safety Board, to investigate patient harm.
More Articles on Patient Safety:
Nurses vs. EHRs: Why the NNU is Fighting the Wrong Fight
36 Approaches to Reducing 9 Common Medical Errors
Patient Safety Advocates: More Transparency With Unintended Medical Harm
